Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong"

And here we have another example of a Global Warming alarmist converting from fanatical activist to scientific skeptic. Why would he do so? Because he is a scientist and was able to see all of the data, not the cherry-picked numbers Al Gore would allow him to see.

From DailyTech.com:

Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was. That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center. After studying it, Zágoni stopped calling global warming a crisis, and has instead focused on presenting the new theory to other climatologists. The data fit extremely well. "I fell in love," he stated at the International Climate Change Conference this week.

Here is what he saw with the new theory and the data:



That is certainly more accurate and complete than Al Gore's claim that the polar ice cap would be gone soon. (The polar ice seems to have come back on its own.)

This leaves a big question:

How did modern researchers make such a mistake? They relied upon equations derived over 80 years ago, equations which left off one term from the final solution. Miskolczi's story reads like a book. Looking at a series of differential equations for the greenhouse effect, he noticed the solution -- originally done in 1922 by Arthur Milne, but still used by climate researchers today -- ignored boundary conditions by assuming an "infinitely thick" atmosphere. Similar assumptions are common when solving differential equations; they simplify the calculations and often result in a result that still very closely matches reality. But not always. So Miskolczi re-derived the solution, this time using the proper boundary conditions for an atmosphere that is not infinite. His result included a new term, which acts as a negative feedback to counter the positive forcing. At low levels, the new term means a small difference ... but as greenhouse gases rise, the negative feedback predominates, forcing values back down. NASA refused to release the results. Miskolczi believes their motivation is simple. "Money", he tells DailyTech. Research that contradicts the view of an impending crisis jeopardizes funding, not only for his own atmosphere-monitoring project, but all climate-change research. Currently, funding for climate research tops $5 billion per year.

So, would you rather fund a politcal agenda, or a real scientific effort into research and experiment that leads to greater knowledge and understanding?

I know which one I would choose.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong"
Michael Asher
DailyTech.com
March 6, 2008